Somos en escrito Foundation Press launches its third book, Postcards from a PostMexican by Álvaro Ramírez A Transformed Mexico Emerges in Provocative Collection of Essays by One of Its Transnational SonsPostcards from a PostMexican peels away the façade of the nationalist, folkloric Old Mexico to reveal a country which each day looks more and more like its salsa-loving, border-sharing wall-building neighbor—the U.S. Author Álvaro Ramírez, the self-defined PostMexican in the title, chronicles the amazing cultural transformation that is taking place in a transnational geographical area that encompasses Mexico and the United States. Ramírez shows that the world as we knew it is disappearing or morphing into another at a dizzying pace in the new millennium, thanks to massive migrations, NAFTA, the Internet, and social media. These socio-economic and technological forces are deluding the unique cultural identities that differentiated us neatly into nations. What is emerging is a hybrid world where Americans set to a large degree the trends, the cultural models that define the inhabitants of both countries. Interestingly, most people are unaware of the changes Mexicans are going through in the postMexican condition until they have a chance to visit either country. American tourists (especially Mexican Americans) are shocked and put off by the heavy presence of American culture (music, movies, sports, clothes, fast food) in Mexico; Mexicans are surprised at the amount of their national culture alive and doing well in the United States (food, mariachis, ballet folklórico, Cinco de Mayo, Día de los Muertos). After witnessing and studying these phenomena for many years, presenting papers at conferences, and teaching many courses on the subject, Ramírez decided to start a blog where he could rant and rave on these matters in a non-academic style, free of jargon, accessible to all readers. In Postcards from a PostMexican, he offers short, lucid analyses of the transnational world in which he lives. The twilight of Mexican nationalism, the relation of Mexico and its migrants, the rise of the NAFTA Generation, Mexican racism and xenophobia, the populism of Donald Trump and Andrés Manuel López Obrador, are but a few of the issues that Ramírez addresses with flair and a good dose of humor, which leaves the reader with an understanding that Mexicanness is not what it used to be. See Postcards from a PostMexican in our Somos en escrito Foundation Press page, get it at Amazon, and follow @PostMexican happenings on its Facebook. ![]() Álvaro Ramírez, born in Michoacán, México, of Purépecha origin, migrated with his family to Ohio as an adolescent. A Professor of Literature at various California schools, he has been a Professor in the Department of World Languages and Cultures at Saint Mary’s College (Moraga) since 1993, where he specializes in Spanish Golden Age and Latin American literature, Mexican Film, and Chicano Cultural Studies. His first book, a collection of short stories in Spanish, Los norteados, was a finalist in the 2017 International Latino Book Awards competition.
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The deadline at the end of the hall......is December 1stOur Extra Fiction Contest requires more...you now have until December to sate its thirst. Please warn all before it is too late.
BEYOND THE USUAL Any unpublished fiction that conveys this extra element is eligible. That means any genre, Spec-Lit, Horror, Sci-fi, Experimental, Magic Realism, Fantasy, Abstract, Slipstream, etc. We seek manuscripts from writers of Indigenous, Mexican, Chicano, Puerto Rican, other Caribbean, Central or South American origin born or living in the U.S. Our judge is Ernest Hogan, Father of Chicano Sci-fi and author of Cortez on Jupiter, High Aztech, and Smoking Mirror Blues. PRIZES First prize is $100. Second and Third Place and two honorary finalists will earn publication and will receive a book donated to Somos en escrito from noted Latino authors. PREVIOUS WINNERS 2019 First Place "El Parbulito" by Gloria Delgado Second Place "A Story of the Fourth Crusade" by Rosa Martha Villarreal Third Place Excerpt from When Corn People Wage War by Tania Romero 2018 (read them here) First Place “Fatherly, dragonly, motherly . . . love, luck and touch” Rudy Ch. García Second Place “The Archivist” Ricardo Tavarez Third Place "Sessions In Augmented Reality" Nicholas Belardes TO SUBMITEmail to [email protected] with “Extra-Fiction 2020” in the Subject Box. Please format manuscripts in Word format, as .docx or .doc attachments, single-spaced and in 12-point Times New Roman font. Place your name and email address in the upper left hand corner of the first page, and submit a short bio including ethnic background along with an author’s photo in .jpeg format. We look forward to an even more exciting contest than the previous two years. Good luck to all writers. —The Editors of Somos en escrito Magazine |
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